


A Bane of the Heart

by lodessa



Series: Game of Fixes [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU From the End of 8x03, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, Daenerys Stays Sane, F/M, Feelings Realization, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Jorah Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 00:39:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18884572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/pseuds/lodessa
Summary: Ser Jorah Mormont survives the battle with the Night King, forcing Daenerys to suddenly realize a great deal about her true feelings.





	A Bane of the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I definitely drew inspiration here from Emilia Clarke's discussion of Jorah's canon end where she says "I think holding him [Jorah] for the first time, she [Daenerys] finally sees what she has closed her eyes through this whole time. And she's seeing it and it's too late." Also from her performance there, clearly. 
> 
> So I wanted to write a fic where it wasn't too late, and where Dany isn't forced into a position where she's lost her best most trusted advisor and the one person who loves her unconditionally just when she finally accepts what that means to her and she doesn't spiral into escalating poor decisions... where the narrative didn't strip everything away from her.

They find her, still clutching his limp form, insensible to all that surrounds her. 

“We won,” someone says, but it brings her no joy. All she feels is the taste of ashes in her mouth.

 _My Bear_ , she thinks, _Come back to me as you always have before._

“You should come inside, your grace. It’s cold and you are covered in blood.”

She looks up to see them standing over her in the grey light of the predawn: Missandei, Tyrion, Varys, and all four of the Starks. _Three Starks and Jon_ , she amends the thought but she finds it hard to put much force into it.

She looks back down at Jorah: ashen, lifeless, and covered in blood. If she lets go of her grip on him, if she gets up and walks away, that means he is really gone. _One more miracle_ , she demands like a petulant child who doesn’t know better and to whom she knows not.

“He could have found no better end,” Tyrion reaches his hand out towards her, “Laying down his life for yours is what he would have chosen. It is what he did choose”

She turned away from the offered help, the intended comfort. She knows that Tyrion means well, and that Jorah himself would doubtless have said the same thing if he could, but she thinks to herself that she could have found a better fate for him.

 _I could have loved him_ , she knows now that it is too late, _I could have loved him the way he wished for. I could have and instead I pushed him away every time I came too close to it._

It is a bitter revelation to have at the moment when it is too late. 

“Dany…” Jon this time, kneeling down to attempt to pry her hands from her fallen knight, but he’s too hesitant. _Jorah would have grabbed hold of me and pulled me away from the atrocity by now. He’d make sure I was out of harm’s way even if I cursed him for it in the moment._

“Don’t!” she hisses, one hand caressing Jorah’s blood covered cheek, as she bends her head towards his once more.

She can feel them all, exchanging looks over her, but Drogon is behind her, around her, protecting her from any real interference.

She’d almost forgotten he was there, that he came back alive. Jorah was the last one who had known her before her dragons had hatched, who had watched them grow from that moment to now. Jorah had been her last tie to the girl she has been before she became a legend instead of a person.

What she wouldn’t give to have him back now, to hear him call her khaleesi, to see the glimmer in his eyes as he looked at her, to have his good honest counsel, and to know that when all hope seemed lost he would arrive and pluck her safely away from danger.

If she had another chance, she would not squander it again.

She knows she cannot stay here forever, that weeping over his corpse will not bring Ser Jorah back any more than she had been able to bring back Drogo or any of the others she has lost along the way.

“I’m not ready,” she whispers, “I wasn’t ready to lose you now. Not now.”

Tears still falling from her eyes, she presses her lips to his forehead.

He gasps. The sudden movement startles her and she sit back up instantly, blinking in surprise as her man in her arms sputters and begins to cough.

“Get the maester!” she cries out, heart pounding and hands shaking, “Find him now, I don’t care what else he’s doing!”

She wipes the blood from his lips and her hand comes away sticky. She never thought she’d be so overjoyed to have someone bleeding on her and yet she is. 

“Stay with me,” she begs him, “Don’t you die on me now!”

The next few days are a haze. Everyone from serving girls to her advisors keep bringing up trays of food she has no interest in. He still hasn’t woken, though the maester seems to think he is doing better and in time he will. She knows she is half delirious from lack of sleep, but she cannot bring herself to stir from her post by Jorah’s beside.

“The maester says he will likely live,” Sansa’s voice coming from the doorway betrays her presence there, though Daenerys has not looked up.

“Gods be praised,” she cannot keep the emotion from her voice, “Though I’m not completely sure which gods those should be. I had always heard that Westeros followed the Seven, but now I’m told the North keeps the Old Gods. I suppose that is my fault for never asking Ser Jorah his opinion on the matter of faith.”

There are a lot of things she never asked him about himself. All these years and she’d found out most of the important things not by asking but because that information was forced on her.

“I am not sure either are listening,” Sansa replies, a faint bitter smile on her face as Daenerys glances up at her, “Though I’m told there are those in Essos who see you as something of a god.”

“People do like to make up tales,” she replies, unsure how to respond to this comment which feels like a trap. “If I were a god of some sort, I imagine I might be having more success.”

“You just defeated the Night King,” Sansa points out.

“Your sister defeated the Night King,” Daenerys counters, “If I were a god I wouldn’t have found myself sitting here for the past three days praying to one to let him live. I’m afraid I’m terribly mortal.”

There are moments when it is easy to get caught up in the people’s stories about her, atop a Dragon, walking through fire, when the crowds in Meereen cheered for her. But then there are days like today, when she knows better.

“As are we all, but you don’t see me publicizing it.” Sansa rolls her eyes.

Daenerys is tired of Sansa Stark’s disdain, her haughty disregard, her snide judgement. Tyrion says that Sansa is one of the cleverest and kindness people he’s ever met, but she’s seen precious little of the latter.

“Yes, we all all very aware of your careful manner, Lady Stark,” she snaps, “Tell me, was there something you wanted or are you just here to mock my lack of composure while the one man who truly trusts me, who was willing to lay down his life for mine without hesitation, is lying here fighting for his life?”

Sansa takes a deep breath and pauses, staring intently at the tableau before her. She evidently sees something; because, her posture softens.

“That was unworthy of me,” she exhales, “I remember when Bran was lying in a bed very like this one after his fall, and how horrid it was. I didn’t come here to pick a fight, all appearances to the contrary. I came because they are all worried and I couldn’t stand their fretting anymore.”

Daenerys knows who _they_ are: Tyrion, Varys, Jon if she’s lucky.

“And I suppose they aren’t here intrevening because…”

If they think that forcing the two of them together at a time like this is like to mend fences, none of them are as sensible as she might have hoped.

“You know why,” Sansa raises her eyebrows slightly.

“They are afraid to interfere with my pride or that I will lash out at them for doing so.”

Jorah wouldn’t have been. Or rather he would have done it anyway if he thought she needed it.

“At least take a bath,” Sansa sighs, crossing and sitting down in a chair on the opposite side of Jorah’s bedside, “I promise I’ll stay here with him until you get back.”

She sniffs her shoulder, realizing just how pungent she has become. Her hair has mostly come out its braids. She discarded her blood stained coat and washed her hands and face in the basin someone brought to her but such things can only do so much. She must look a fright.

“On one condition,” she agrees, partly because Sansa seems genuine here and it takes her by surprise but also recognizing that seeing her like this when he wakes is more likely to worry than comfort Jorah. Besides, he wanted her to find a way to reconcile with the Lady of Winterfell, and this is as good an opportunity as any. “After I come back, you help me figure out how to defeat Cersei.”

“Me?” Sansa asks, “Since when you do want my advice?”

She cannot exactly blame the other woman for that reaction. The truth is though, that few people have more reason to hate Cersei Lannister than Sansa, but also that she lived under the woman’s thumb for a good while. _If someone had wanted to learn everything there was to know about Viserys and how to destroy him, I would have been the perfect person to ask,_ she thinks to herself. If you want to know the truth about a tyrant, ask the people they have terrorized directly.

“Since I thought I had at least one insider who understood how that woman thinks and what she would do next, but it is evident that neither of her brothers is that man after all. I suspect you are.”

“I don’t suppose I could persuade you to put her head on a pike instead of giving her to the dragons,” Sansa says with a deadly seriousness and Daenerys leaves with the understanding that they have had something other than Jon Snow and the trials of being a women in power in common all along. 

 

 

“We need to talk,” Jon says.

Daenerys realizes that they haven’t, not since before the battle not really. Leading up to that moment, he had been the one avoiding her, but now she finds it has been the reverse.

She turns away from the view of the training yard, where Ser Brienne of Tarth is handily deflecting the attempted blows of Ser Jaime Lannister, both of them grinning all the while, to face Jon who has joined her on the ramparts. 

Fine. If he wants to talk, they’ll talk. She’s been distracted and now that he’s here, she remembers how angry she was with him right before the battle. It is hard to summon up that level of rage now; she mostly feels tired.

“If you aren’t going to seize the throne, why did you tell me?” she asks bluntly. 

“It was the right thing to do, even if made you hate me,” Jon replies, and as always he seems sincere. 

“What makes you think I hate you now?” she responds, having given very little thought to Jon either way since the battle. 

Her troops, plans to defeat Cersei, fretting over Ser Jorah’s bedside waiting for him to wake up: all of those are things that have preoccupied her mind. How to feel about Jon Snow and the fact that he is apparently not Jon Snow after all, that had gotten pushed to the side.

“You’re not a shy woman. If you wanted to talk to me you would have.”

He’s not wrong, but it is clear that he misunderstands her reasons.

“It is more complicated than that.”

When she arrived at Winterfell, she’d thought that she and Jon were falling in love, thought that they had a future, thought that was what she wanted. Now it is not so much that those things have become repulsive as that she’s realized they were never what she was making them out to be.

“Sansa said I should give you space,” Jon offers, “I accused her of wanting us to drift further apart, but maybe she was right.”

A week ago, him bringing up Sansa’s name would have grated on her, but now she feels she understands that reliance. Who else would Jon turn to but his family? _I’m his family_ she considers, but she isn’t, not in the way that counts here, just as he is not hers. She glances away towards the other side of the castle, where the maester has assumed her that Jorah is out of danger.

“Your sister… your cousin has an annoying habit of that,” she concedes, “But in this case, you are right about us needing to talk.”

They do need to talk. She can’t afford to alienate a man who has every claim to snatch her throne right out from under her, even if he swears he has no desire or intention to. Beyond that, Jon truly has done nothing to earn her cruelty.

_It’s not his fault I realized far too late what had been standing right in front of me all along._

“If I formally abdicated would that help prove my loyalty?” Jon asks.

It is touching, in its own way, his eagerness to do so. Jon wants to serve. She looks at him directly: dark ringlets, shapely mouth, furrowed brow and earnest dark eyes. There is a political solution to this problem, one that if she hadn’t known was needed she might have stumbled into accidentally.

“At this point, that would just be letting the rest of the kingdom know you could challenge me if you wanted to.”

“What do you want me to do, my queen. Tell me and I’ll do it.”

She has no doubt that he would: honorable Jon Snow, raised by Lord Eddard Stark and if there is anything that everyone who ever met the man seems to agree in is that he was that. Now that she’s been in the North for a little while, she is starting to feel the ways it is different from other places she has been, ever as much as the Dothraki were different from the people of Meereen. 

They say the North remembers, but that doesn’t really cover it. The North is committed. The North waits. The North is steadfast. 

It is the solution to many of her problems, but that is not what she wants: a solution, a logical choice. It would hardly be a hardship: Jon is young and handsome and eager to please. Not too long ago they both thought this was what they wanted, but her stomach sinks at it now and she sees the tension in his address and wonders if it is the same for him.

“Be honest. Does it change things for you?” she asks, considering a simple solution as to why he avoided her the moment he discovered the truth. “Knowing that your real father was my brother?”

Viserys made sure she grew up on tales of Targaryen alliances, with the idea that they belonged together. Jon didn’t have that upbringing.

“It does,” Jon admits, struggling to meet her eyes, “Though perhaps not the way you think.”

“I don’t suppose you would care to explain,” she prompts, wondering what would keep him from simply saying it outright, especially now that she’s given him the opening.

“Look,” Jon looks down, embarrassed, “We both know that a marriage between us would simplify things a great deal and that is where we were headed before Bran and Sam revealed the secret Eddard Stark took to his grave. If that is what you are asking for, I will kneel down right now and promise myself to you. I will be faithful and true. But, is that what you want?”

It is hardly a declaration of love, and yet she knows that Jon would do his best. That is more than can be said for most political marriages. It is more than she had when she was given to Drogo and yet they had learned to love one another.

“I don’t know,” she admits.

Marriage to Jon is the political choice. It is the kind of thing she told herself she was planning for when she left Daario behind in Essos, and yet now she wonders if that was truly the reason she discarded him. She had been grief stricken on the way across the sea to Westeros, but then she had just learned that Jorah was afflicted with greyscale. She’d thought she’d never see him again, just when she had gotten him back.

“Your grace,” a serving girl comes running towards her, “I am bid come tell you Ser Jorah has awoken.”

She finds herself halfway to the stairs before she remembers that she was in the middle of a conversation.

“It’s fine,” Jon says, “Go. We can talk about it later.”

It is fitting, she thinks, it seems that at Winterfell it is impossible to finish any conversation of note without being interrupted, though in this case she was not prepared to complete the topic either way.

Jorah is still terribly pale, but his face lights up when he sees her anyway and she feels the temperature in the room warm noticeably.

“Khaleesi,” he smiles, trying to push himself up to a sitting position, but she quickly crosses the room to sit beside his bed, pressing his chest back down with both of her hands.

“Oh my brave bear, I thought I might really have lost you this time.”

She doesn’t know what else to say, all the words that flowed so easily in her mind when she thought he was lost to her forever seem stilted and impossible now.

“They say I’ve been out for a week,” he says, apparently similarly at a similar loss for meaningful words, “I’m surprised you aren’t already halfway to King’s Landing.”

“Lady Stark says the troops need rest,” she sighs. 

“And you listened to her?” 

“I hadn’t quite decided to, but it was only in the last day that the maester said you were out of danger and Rhaegal is still wounded and-”

“And you know she’s right,” he finishes for her.

“Of course she is,” she owns, knowing he is safe to confide in. “Does she have to be so insufferable about it, though?”

“I thought you two were trying to mend fences,” he says softly.

“I did try. I am trying. She insists on being impossible.”

He was the one who convinced her it was necessary, despite Jon and Tyrion’s urging. She wants him to know she took his words to heart, that she trusts his guidance once again.

“You aren’t used to having other ladies of rank, my queen. It is natural that it is difficult for you to navigate what most people in your position spend time learning from their infancy.”

“I’ve needed your counsel,” she admits. “I’ve needed you.”

It feels good to say, even in a coward’s way, letting him assume she means by it what she always has before, not daring to tell him everything she realized while he was bleeding out in her arms. 

Still she imagines doing so, imagines the way his face might take when she told him that she loves him, not simply as a confidant and vassal, but as a man, a man who she longs to finally take in her arms. She imagines the feeling of his beard scraping against her as she holds his head to her breast. She imagines his hands all over her and the weight of him on her.

“Surely Tyrion would be a better resource when it comes to dealing with your soon to be sister,” he counters, pulling her out of her daydreams, deflecting even that pale declaration and leaving her as a loss for words.

“He isn’t…” she begins, only to stop mid sentence and try again with, “It’s not just about her and besides who says she’s-”

“I’m not blind yet,” he says with a soft resignation that bears no malice.

Of course he noticed, she recognizes. Jorah watches her vigilantly, but she also wonders just how many other people have made similar assumptions. 

“Everyone is expecting it, aren’t they? That’s why the northerners are tolerating my continued presence here.”

Does she even really have a choice in the matter anymore or have her and Jon’s past actions cornered them into an unofficial betrothal that would be disastrous to break?

“You could do a lot worse,” he says, and she hears the unspoken message of _You have done a lot worse_. “He seems a good fellow and you couldn’t ask for a better bloodline to connect to, especially with this bid for northern independence.”

There are things she wants to tell him, but how can she now when he is reminding her that she has committed herself to a different path. _I chose this,_ she remembers, but it is little comfort. 

“You don’t object?” she asks, finding that she wishes he would; though, she’s not sure whether she’s hoping for an argument for breaking free of this connection with Jon or for a simple protest based on emotion.

“On what grounds could I do so, Khaleesi?” he gazes up at her a little forlornly, and she reaches out and takes on of his hands in hers.

“You promised you would never lie to me again, Jorah the Andal,” she insists.

She knows that if he says it now, if he tells her it breaks his heart to think of her with Jon, that she will reveal everything. 

“I want you to be happy. If Jon Snow makes you happy, forget all the rest.” 

“And if he doesn’t?” she presses.

“When Khal Drogo died, I told you I would go with you anywhere, that I would protect you against any who tried to make you do something against your will. I may be less physically capable of following through on that at the moment, but that is still my heart.”

It is the promise of a knight, the promise of her kingsguard, a promise that both encapsulates what he is not saying and at the same time masks it.

 _My heart has changed_ she wants to say, but she isn’t sure how far she is willing to follow that. She’s come so far and lost so much to get to this point. She cannot abandon her responsibility to the people now, cannot give up when victory is so close within her grasp. 

“My sweet bear,” she calls him instead, raising his hand in hers to press her lips against it. 

It is a smaller gesture than she has imagined, but it will do for now, she tells herself. He looks up at her as though it is a more dramatic benediction, but then she realizes… he’s used to being the one offering gestures of devotion.

 

 

“I think we should talk before the rest of the war council gathers,” she finds the will to tell Sansa when she finds her kneeling before the heart tree in the center of the Godswood.

“Oh?” Sansa twists her head back around towards Daenerys, before rising to her feet.

“It would be foolish of me to try to disregard or silence you, but discussing strategy in front of the others for the first time often makes it feel like a competition being scored between us, doesn’t it?”

Sansa shakes her head, looking as though she is resisting the urge to laugh aloud. Frustrated, Daenerys feels her hackles rising, feels the urge to call out to Drogon and make Lady Stark beg for her life. It wouldn’t do, though, not if she wants to be a good ruler, not if she wants to defeat Cersei, not if she doesn’t want Jon and the rest of the north to turn against her.

“That’s what I keep telling Jon,” Sansa shakes her head, revealing a very different motivation than Daenerys had assumed. “And yet he will insist on springing surprises on me in the middle of the great hall and then feel attacked when I point of my concerns.”

 _This is a lesson,_ she reminds herself. _If I am to rule here I must learn political solutions, must learn to gain cooperation not through the fear of dragon fire alone. These people don’t see me as a savior like the slaves of Essos who had known nothing else._

“I won’t pretend that we don’t have some differences I’m not sure how to resolve, but I do recognize that if I intend to be queen of all seven kingdoms not just half of them, I am going to have to figure out how to work with you in earnest.”

The North and the Vale already belong to Sansa, and with that Tully red hair no one in the Riverlands would fight against her. 

“We do both want Cersei gone,” Sansa agrees. “And I have seen now that you do have some loyalty towards those who serve you, at least.”

It’s not much of an endorsement, but it is better than Daenerys expected. She wonders what Sansa saw in her distress over Jorah. How much had she surmised or misinterpreted? _It doesn’t matter,_ she tells herself, _Whatever she believes she saw has made her soften towards me._

“So you won’t fight me on taking the troops south to rip her out of King’s Landing?” she asks, just to see what Sansa will say.

“I don’t think a siege is the best approach,” Sansa tells her, but it seems less malicious now. “She would have the fortified position in the middle of winter and an endless supply of civilians to use against you.”

“So I’m just supposed to let her sit on my throne?”

Sansa has a point, just as she did pointing out the tired troops, but Daenerys has not come this far simply to back down because conquest is inconvenient. She did not lead the Dothraki and her Unsullied across the water to die only to lose her nerve now.

“Perhaps for a little while longer. Cersei is paying mercenaries, which means the longer we wait the worse position she is in. Eventually she will have to release them or venture out of her castle to fight us. Both the Twins and Moat Cailin are strong defensible positions we could hold with a small force against anything she might throw at us.”

“And if she chooses to stay behind those walls for months or years on end?”

Setting up somewhere other than Winterfell might help her feel more in control, but the Red Keep isn’t just a castle, it is a symbol to the people of Westeros. As long as someone else sits on the Iron Throne she will never really be their queen.

“Assassins are far more effective and create less collateral damage than soldiers and dragons. Surely Varys could find someone to poison her wine or throw her off a high balcony.”

They had tried to poison her in Meereen. 

“That doesn’t sound very heroic.”

She doesn’t want that to be her legacy, trickery and subterfuge.

“Do you want to be heroic or do you want to win?” Sansa says flatly.

There it is again, that iron will of the North, something she has in her own way, but instead of the swift retribution of fire and blood, the north’s determination is deep rooted, patient, abiding. 

“Ideally both,” she admits. 

“Dorne has no love for Cersei. Let the viper nest take credit for her death if you want to be seen as innocent,” Sansa offers, another practical solution no one else has raised with her.

But then she would be in Sansa’s debt, in her pocket, a shadowy secret held over her from then on.

“Let’s imagine I do as you say and Cersei Lannister perishes, leaving King’s Landing ripe for the taking. What is it you’d demand for silence on my involvement in such a plot?”

“You know what I want,” Sansa replies simply, not bothering to deny the potential blackmail.

“Northern Independence,” Daenerys exhales in frustration, “Isn't there anything else you’d take?”

“What are you offering?”

She doesn’t know. What else does Sansa want? 

Probably something related to Jon, but Daenerys is not entirely sure which direction that hope lies in. She’s not sure what she wants to do when it comes to Jon, but she feels that Sansa must have her own ideal outcome. The obvious answer would be that by having Jon in the Red Keep, Sansa would strengthen her position, and yet she seemed far more hostile when she was believed that Daenerys had lured him in than now when they are barely speaking.

“I don’t suppose you’d want to be my Hand?” she says instead, mostly not insincerely. Her current Hand is supposed to be the smartest man in Westeros, but Sansa Stark clearly has a better head from strategy than Tyrion Lannister.

“No offense intended, but I am determined to never go back to King’s Landing again in my lifetime.”

A part of Daenerys can relate to the sentiment. Some days she wishes she had never travelled to this strange cold land, despite it being her birthright and supposed home. 

“I’m a bit short on kinsmen to offer you in marriage,” she replies instead, working her way down the list of typical alliance building blocks.

They don’t find a solution that day, but the war council goes by without Sansa undercutting her this time, and she feels as though maybe there is one after all. A week turns into two, and two into a month. Things with Jon remain tense, and she avoids the Great Hall, choosing instead to dine alone with Jorah.

“Tell me the truth,” she implores him in her second cup of wine, “Is this a Stark thing, a Sansa Stark thing, or does the North really just not want to be part of the kingdom?”

Jorah takes another sip of his wine before answering. He’s looking more like his old self, the color back in his cheeks, and his eyes have regained their twinkle. He’s definitely worse for wear, and yet Daenerys finds herself watching him with more careful interest than she did before.

“The only reason the North stayed with the rest of Westeros after Robert’s Rebellion was the love held between Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon. The northern lords have always chafed under your family’s rule and the Starks have never forgotten that they used to be kings. The common people, like everywhere the common people want food to eat and a warm hearth at night. The Starks have been just lords and so the people trust them.”

Jorah has no reason to lie to her on this and it fits with what she’s seen, with the feeling she gets when she talks to them. The Starks are the key to the North, if there is one. _Marry Jon and use the Stark name to legitimize myself_ , she tells herself, _That’s what my ancestors did in Dorne_ but even in her head she sounds unconvinced. 

“So this isn’t a new feeling for them, then. It isn’t some passing fancy that will fade.”

“It will die down,” he tells her, “once they get used to how things are, but I’m afraid that this desire to be free will always lie in wait under the surface here.”

“As it does for you?” she asks, not because she believes it to be true but because she needs to hear him remind her that it isn’t.

“We all have longings that live beneath our skin, but that is not mine,” he assures her, hesitating before reaching across the table towards her hand, stopping just shy of touching her. 

“I am glad of it,” she tells him, closing the gap between their outstretched fingers, entwining hers with his.

There were so many times where she was free to choose, where it would have been easy. Now, though, now she knows that she loves him, her loyal bear, her protector. Now she sees him in earnest for the first time and it is when she has to walk a different path.

She imagines forward and taking his face in her hands to guide it to her own. When she closes her eyes at night, it is not Jon but Jorah she imagines lying next to her. She knows that she has only to say the word, that he would have her under whatever conditions she might set, and that knowledge burns within her like a flame calling to a moth.

“My queen, Ser Jorah, my apologies for interrupting…”

Daenerys draws her hand back hurriedly, like a child caught sneaking sweets. She sees Jorah’s brow furrow before she turns towards Jon.

“Come join us,” she tells him a little too eagerly, “The servants brought enough food up to feed a dragon.”

“There’s been a raven,” Jon says, still hovering in the doorway, “It’s from King’s Landing. Cersei Lannister is dead.”

“You are sure this isn’t a trick?” she swallows.

“Bran says he saw her tumble from the top of the Red Keep,” Jon replies, “His visions have yet to be wrong.”

Bran. Of course. Brandon Stark who knows everything that has ever come to pass. Bran who is one of the things keeping her from telling Jorah about the struggle going on within her, part of the reason she has not taken him in her arms as she wishes so deeply to. 

She cannot risk Bran seeing that and telling the rest of his family what he sees. Not if it turns out she needs to wed Jon.

“And the people?” Jorah asks for her, when she fails to respond immediately.

“They have opened the gates and hung the Targaryen colors.”

Everything is going according to Sansa’s plan then. Now it is time to see if Tyrion has done his part.

 

 

“I Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, Last of my Name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhyonar, and the First Men, Protector of the Realm, The Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Mother of Dragons, The Unburnt, Breaker of Chains, and Lady of Dragonstone do hereby pledge to rule Westeros justly and fairly, until such time as a council comprised evenly of each of the seven kingdoms shall be established and demonstrate its capacity to peacefully govern without the need of one supreme monarch. The wheel shall be broken with my death. As a symbol of this promise, witness the destruction of the Iron Throne, never to be fought over again.”

The heat of Drogon’s fire rushes through the throne room, to the sound of shocked silence. Daenerys smiles as she watches the throne dissolve into a puddle. It isn’t truly a sacrifice. She loses nothing in this bargain, barren as she is. In truth it simplifies things, having no need to invent a line of succession. 

Gathering up the heavy skirts of her scarlet gown, Daenerys steps off the dias, accepting the offered hand of Ser Jorah to help her down the stairs. 

To her right, Jon is conversing with Sansa, who had been persuaded to made the journey south after all, Brienne of Tarth in tow behind her and Jaime Lannister hanging back just slightly more. To her left Tyrion is conversing with the delegation from Dorne. 

She heads towards the northerners.

“Your grace,” Sansa curtsies gracefully. From the outside, no one would suspect that she did not feel entirely at ease in this place.

“Satisfied?” Daenerys asks her.

“For now,” Sansa raises an eyebrow, “ I do hope you aren’t stupid enough to break your promises. I really don’t want to come back south.”

“I’ll do my best, Lady Stark,” Daenerys assures her, less bothered by the other woman’s distrusting nature now that she knows her better. “I take it you are leaving then.”

“First thing in the morning.”

“Safe travels then,” she tells her, “And Sansa, if you ever change your mind, you would be welcome here at court any time you choose. I could use you on my small council.”

It is the truth. Sansa Stark is shrewd and practical, but she also has a delicate courtly manner. She is the most important single ally Daenerys could have.

As Sansa walks away, Daenerys notices Jon’s gaze following after her. The light silvery grey of the Lady of Winterfell’s dress suits her. Daenerys has no doubt that half the men in this hall will ask her to dance before the night is through.

“You want to go back north with her,” she recognizes.

“I promised to stay by your side,” he doesn’t actually answer.

“That isn’t what I asked, Jon Snow.”

“Yes, your Grace,” he admits bashfully, “My heart belongs to the North.”

“Then go,” she tells him, more relieved than she had imagined being. “Go home with my blessing.”

“You would let me go, despite your fears about my parentage being exposed and fermenting rebellion?”

It is the right thing to do. It serves neither of them for her to keep him here, a hostage consort when that is not what either of them want. 

“Lady Sansa knows that all hopes for northern sovereignty rest on that secret remaining hidden. I trust her to keep anyone who would unearth it in line.”

 _I refuse to live the rest of my life feeding my fears._ Perhaps the day may come when she regrets this, but if she does not trust in Jon and Sansa, she will live every day with regret.

“You are sure, my queen?” Jon is clearly shaken, surprised at this kindness, though no ill or sweet words have passed between them since they journeyed south.

“I am.”

She watches him hurry to catch up with Sansa and then turns to see Jorah still behind her, looking at her with open concern.

“Are you alright, your grace?” he asks quietly, head bowed slightly.

“Better than,” she assures him, “Come, my fretful bear, escort me back to my chambers.”

Turning her back on the lords and ladies still drifting around the former throne room, Daenerys, leans on Jorah’s offered arm.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to summon your handmaidens?” he asks as they reach her rooms.

“You’re worried about me,” she calls him out, “Why?”

“I overheard your conversation with Jon Snow,” he admits, “I’m sorry.”

“Why? I’m not,” she replies, only halfway through realizing the reason he thinks she needs comfort. 

Her selfless bear, putting her feelings first, worried that Jon Snow might have broken her heart, when what he really did was release her from any obligation to him.

“You aren’t?” he sounds genuinely surprised.

“No,” she smiles at him, heart swelling as she gazes as his beloved face, realizing just how free she finally is, “I’ve long since known that he was not for me. In fact, there was a time when believing I had no choice but to make a match weighed heavily on me.”

“But it seemed…” he begins, but stops, realizing he might be crossing a line.

“There was a short while where I deceived myself,” she admits, “But on the other side of the battle with the Night King, I realized otherwise.”

“Khaleesi? I do not understand.”

“Neither did I until it was almost too late.”

“I am sure you will find someone better, more worthy, ” he offers, clearly unaware of where her feelings lie now.

_He really abandoned any hope _, she recognizes, _And yet he didn’t abandon me._ When she had thought she might not be free to give herself as she would wish, she had kept the change in her feelings to herself as best she could, but that is no longer the case she recognizes.__

__“Jorah,” she says, reaching out and cradling one side of his face in her hand, “My dear bear, my beloved bear. You told me once you would always love me.”_ _

__“That has not changed,” he tells her freely._ _

__“Good. Because there is something I realized when you nearly died in my arms that night. I hadn’t been being fair to you, hadn’t been being fair to myself. You have my love. I’ve wanted to tell you ever since you survived but I didn’t think I would have the option. I didn’t think I would have the choice.”_ _

__“Khaleesi. Daenerys…” he stammers, as if not believing he is hearing her right._ _

__She can stand it no longer, stepping forward to take his face his both hands now as she presses up onto her toes and finds his mouth with her own._ _

__She feels him shudder, trembling against her before recovering enough from the shock to kiss her back, lips parting, meeting the contact of her mouth with his own._ _

__“My patient bear. My long suffering bear,” she murmurs as she pulls back for air momentarily, “I have been harder on you than anyone else and you have never held it against me.”_ _

__“Am I dreaming?” he asks as she presses more kisses all over his face._ _

__“No,” she assures him, “This is real. I love you. I want you.”_ _

__His arms enfold her, covering her back, as his mouth wanders along her jaw, all the way to just under her ear and then back to her lips._ _

__She runs her hands down his throat and over his shoulders, drinking him in as they kiss more deeply. Her hands work open the fastenings to his white cloak, letting it fall to the ground._ _

__His hands clasp around her waist, firm but not rough, sure and secure._ _

__His lips travel down the length of her throat and she moves her hands to unclasp the heavy necklace obstructing their path, throwing in carelessly in the direction of a nearby table._ _

__For a moment they stare silently into one another’s eyes, and then he lifts her up, one arm around her back and the other behind her legs, and carries her towards the bedchamber. He has carried her before she realizes, but before now always away from danger rather that towards joy._ _

__He carefully sets her back down when they arrive, and she goes to work immediately at disrobing him. He moves to do it himself, but she bats away his hand, though the layers of Westerosi armor and clothing are many and elaborately fasted. She wants to do this, wants to peel him free of it all, wants to stare into his blue eyes and watch the catch of breath in his throat as she moves her hands over his broad torso. As she lifts his shirt over his head, Daenerys draws Jorah closer, kissing him again, feeling him smile against her lips._ _

__She doesn’t feel nervous. There isn’t that sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach from the unknown she remembers from the first time she went to bed with her prior lovers. No. She feels exhilarated, but it is a warm soft tingle up her spine. It is the feeling that she is grinning so widely her cheeks are beginning to ache. Jorah’s strong, worn hands feel like home on her skin as he traces his fingertips up her arms, one moving to cradle her cheek as the other comes to rest at the small of her back._ _

__He is covered in scars, and she traces on along his collarbone with her thumb, feeling the smooth texture of the scar tissue, before moving on to a smaller circular on on his shoulder. She traces down his arm to the angry section of his forearm where Samwell Tarly cut away the greyscale infection, wrapping her hand around it and pressing it against her chest. _I almost lost him then_ , she knows, _I almost lost him and it was because I had sent him away from he that he was infected in the first place.__ _

__“I’m sorry I’m a bit worse for wear, I’m afraid,” he apologizes._ _

__“Don’t be,” she replies, “Each of them tells a part of the story of who you are, and how you ended up here with me.”_ _

__He puts his hands on her shoulders and spins her around so that her back is to him, carefully moving her hair to the side over one shoulder. Then she feels him begin to unlace the corseted back of her grown: careful, steady, with no fumbling. As the laces come apart, his lips press against her skin, starting at the nape of her neck and moving downward, beard gently tickling her skin as the sensation of his mouth along her spine sends shivers through her body._ _

__As her dress falls free and pools around her feet, Daenerys turns back around to look down at Jorah kneeling before her, gazing up at her with adoration that might be more overt but is in some ways the same way he has long since looked at her._ _

__She lets herself feel the depth of it, resting one hand on his head as he holds the swell of her hips in both of his._ _

__He continues looking up into her eyes as he begins kissing first one and then the other of her thighs. She runs her hands through his hair and then he bends his head resting his forehead against her belly, his breath warm through her smallclothes._ _

__Daenerys feels her legs quake as he slides her smallclothes down her legs, pressing his lips between them. Reaching backward with one hand, she locates the edge of the bed and seats herself there, guiding him to follow her. She is immediately grateful for the precaution as Jorah’s lips drag over her inner thighs and then inwards._ _

__Tracing slow circles over her bare skin with both hands, he nuzzles his face against her thighs before he presses his tongue against her core, a long slow lick, followed by another. His eyes hold hers, studying her response as his tongue traces different shapes. Before she came to Westeros, she didn’t know men did this at all, and before tonight she didn’t know that they could actually be skilled at it._ _

__Hands still in his hair, she relaxes into the vibrations running through her body, into the jolts of pleasure intensifying. She feels safe with Jorah’s hands cradling her trembling thighs in his hands, safe and loved as he wraps his lips gently around the center of her pleasure and sucks slowly, drawing sound from her lips as her hips arch. She anchors one hand back behind her on the bed to keep upright._ _

__He doesn’t stop as she begins to tense, reaching release, but softens, drawing her pleasure out until it recedes like a wave from the shore. When he lifts his head, he’s clearly breathing a little heavily, through not so much as she is._ _

__She reaches out her hands to him to bring him back to his feet, hands still shaking slightly as she liberates him from his breeches and then smallclothes. For a moment they simply stare at one another._ _

__“Come here,” she urges him, crawling further onto the bed and gesturing for him to join her._ _

__He does not need further prompting as he does so, leaning over her as she stretches out and caressing one of her breasts as he begins to kiss her, the taste of her pleasure on his tongue, lips, and face._ _

__She rolls over onto him, straddling him as she kisses him back with increasing intensity. Both of his hands have moved to her breasts, touching her in a way that is neither possessive or teasing as his palms rub against her nipples, but instead something soft but sure._ _

__“My good bear,” she breathes, sitting up still astride him, reaching a hand down to stroke his manhood and feeling him respond to the familiar nickname, only to have him sit up to meet her, their bodies pressing against one another as he wraps one arm around her back, their foreheads kissing._ _

__Grabbing hold of the hand not wrapped around her, she intertwines their fingers._ _

__“I love you, my khaleesi,” he declares, and it isn’t a new revelation but if feels different now that she wants to hear it._ _

__Before that knowledge tore at her soul, ripped her heart to shreds, now she feels a pulsing warmth throughout her body, a tingling thrill she doesn’t want to end._ _

__She stares into his eyes as she shifts her hips, moving to line their bodies up so he’s pressed against her, and sees the truth of his promise, sees the man he is and the way he looks at her. As she sinks down onto him, she moves her free hand to his cheek, caressing his face as she takes him inside of her._ _

__He strokes her lower back softly with his thumb, kissing her cheek and then her shoulder where it connects to her neck, before finding her lips once more._ _

__Squeezing his hand with hers, she trembles as they join together, feeling connected to him in a way she’s never experienced before._ _

__“I love you more than my own life,” he murmurs, as they move together, and she feels her eyes fill with tears at the surge of emotion and sensation coupled. “I loved you when I thought that it was impossible for you to ever care for me in return and I love you now that you have answered my hopeless desperate prayers._ _

__“I loved you when I didn’t even stop to consider that I might. I loved you when I thought I despised you. I loved you when I thought you were lost to me forever,” she returns, circling her hips more widely, pressing kisses everywhere her mouth can reach on him._ _

__She wraps both arms around his neck, keeping him close even as the intensity of her movements encourages him to do the same. He wraps both arms around her, one hand splayed across her back as the other moves into her hair._ _

__Her bear. Her safety in a storm of war and strife. The man who saw something in her when no one else did. He meets her with a passion that is not violent or afraid but deep and certain._ _

__She feels the tears run down her face as she peaks around him, not in sadness or grief or shame or rage, but a completion of release as she feels him stiffen almost immediately with her, mouth going slack as a groan escapes him. She clings to him, riding out both of their climaxes, and then collapses limply against him, face nestled against his neck._ _

__Daenerys is not sure how long they remain like that, before knocking at her outer chamber door forces her to sit back up straight. She places another slow lingering kiss on Jorah’s mouth, before pulling away, his arm reluctantly releasing her and reaching for a dressing gown._ _

__It is Missandei._ _

__“Lord Tyrion was worried when you left the feast so early,” she explains._ _

__“There’s nothing to worry about,” Daenerys assures her, watching as Missandei notices the while cloak on the floor and the flushed glow of her skin._ _

__“There is something else,” Missandei tells her, “If I might speak freely.”_ _

__“Always,” Daenerys reassures her, though she worries what Missandei might feel the need to say so urgently._ _

__“You know you have my loyalty, but I wish to go home. I do not wish to die in this strange cold land.”_ _

__The idea of her leaving grieves Daenerys, but she sees now why Missandei seized this moment to ask. Surely, she realized that she had caught her in a joyful mood and thus a time she was more likely to be generous._ _

__“You know I would not keep you against your will, Missandei of Nath. You are no longer a slave.”_ _

__“And Greyworm, my queen?”_ _

__“We should talk of this more fully at a different hour,” she tells Missandei, realizing the direction this conversation, “But you are all free to go, should you choose. The war is over and all of you deserve to forge your own paths.”_ _

__“I will not keep you,” Missandei smiles, glancing towards the bedroom door, and then departs._ _

__“I couldn’t help overhearing,” Jorah tells her, as she returns back to him there._ _

__“I will be sorry to see them go,” Daenerys admits, taking off her crown to set it on the bedside table and taking solace in him as his arms enfold her._ _

__“You have lost so many people,” he recognizes, “I know it can’t be easy for you.”_ _

__“It isn’t, but as long as I have you I can bear it,” she tells him. She isn’t alone. He will not leave her._ _

__She doesn’t need a king, never has. What she has always need was a knight, a protector, someone who loves her more than anything else in the world._ _

__“I am yours,” he promises, “However you will have me.”_ _

__“Just stay,” she murmurs, resting her head against his chest._ _

__They crawl under the blankets and she curls herself into the shelter of his arm around her, one of her hands resting against his beating heart. _It is enough_ , she thinks. Finally. This is enough. She has had enough miracles to last a lifetime._ _

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first in a series of AU fix-it fics I am going to be writing in response to season 8, each focused on a different ship but in the same AU timeline.


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